Sunday, August 30, 2009

Maximum SS Taxes Have Increased 4X Since 1970

The chart above is based on Social Security Administration data here for maximum taxable Social Security earnings, and here for the tax rates for Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) and Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI), and shows the maximum annual taxes payable from 1937 to 2009. The annual tax amounts have been adjusted for inflation using the CPI data available here, and are shown above in 2009 dollars for the total annual contributions that come from both employees (50% of the total) and employers (50% of total). Note that since 1970, the maximum taxes paid annually for Social Security and Medicare has more than quadrupled from $4,000 to more than $16,000.

'Without changes in law, CBO expects that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2043. If that point is reached, the Social Security Administration will not have the legal authority to pay full benefits and the amounts that could be paid would be about 17 percent less than those scheduled under current law'...

According to Merriam-Webster:Ponzi Scheme: an investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.

That's in addition to Social Security being the most regressive tax ever imposed on the American worker. A tax that most of the people who call themselves "progressives" fight tooth and nail to preserve.